*** The Mafaufau Sita aka David "Tuaman" Tua champ-by-40 Express!!! ***

Tua in the ring day and night

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Last updated 05:00 20/09/2009


David Tua's world has temporarily shrunk to 32sq ft of an Onehunga warehouse in Auckland his fight against Shane Cameron in Hamilton now just a fortnight away. Tua isn't going home until his work is finished. So he's not only sleeping at his gym, but in the very centre of his boxing ring.

Every night, he drags a mattress on to the canvas; every morning, he stashes it in a back room and climbs back into the squared circle.
But it's his other bed, the one that, win or lose, waits for him at home with his wife Robina and his two sons that he wants to talk about.
"Sometimes, you've got to do it," Tua says of his unusual accommodation. "I'm not a prisoner in my own gym, but I believe there is a time for everything. I've also got to remember there is a bigger life than what I am doing in there. It's where I sleep [at home] that has to be right first."
The last time I met Tua at his gym, back in January, neither was in good condition. The gym itself was dirty, dusty and strewn with the detritus of his fight career and Tua was flabby and refusing to be seen in training kit. Now, he sits before me in a black singlet, the shoulders hacked away to reveal trapezius muscles of remarkable size and definition, and the gym has been stripped of the inessentials and has become a spartan place of work.
Tua has torn down his old fight posters, and the only artwork which remains is a cover shot from Spasifik magazine of him with Robina. "My whole conviction comes down to that," says Tua, gesturing at the image. "The most important thing is my family. When all is said and done, what do I stand for? Because I am not going to be a fighter forever."
He says that line a few times. He also keeps repeating that he is "not just a boxer any more", but a father and a husband. "I believe that's what's making me the happiest person right now, makes me enjoy what I am doing in the ring. It allows me the peace of mind, to know everything is good at home."
At 37, Tua is aware his career is finite and he has accepted that it has not been perfect.
"His advantage over Cameron is his age," says his trainer, Roger Bloodworth. "He is much more mature now as a man, even than a couple of years ago ... he is different, more mature emotionally, more mature physically."
Tua says he has never trained harder in his life, and never found that training more challenging. He admits that early in his comeback, when he was undergoing four hours a day of relentless fat-burning with conditioner Lee Parore, he had doubts, that his emotions were "messing" with him.
"There were questions that needed answers," he explains. "Are you kidding yourself? Are you doing it for the right reasons? Do you still have what it takes? Are you hungry enough? Are you still young enough? Is the love still there? Is the passion still there?"
All have been resolved, he says. Tua begins reeling off the emotions he now feels while inside the ring, the place where he spends more waking moments than anywhere else. Words like compassion, peace, love, calmness.
Some of this inner peace is relatively recent, however. Tua admits Cameron has made him angry.
"I'd be lying if I said no," he concedes. "How I used to feel in the beginning, when I did express myself, is a little bit different now. I think it's important not to let ill-feeling get in the way because at the end of the day, you've got to be clear-headed in there."
This is Tua trying to call a halt to the trash-talk. "I said what I needed to say, it's done ... at the end of the day, when the bell rings, all the talking stops."
He asks me why Cameron is angry with him. I say it's because he feels disrespected by Tua. "I respect him as a person." But as a boxer? There's a sly smile. "Maybe a different story."
The Tua camp is paying attention anyway. Tua, Bloodworth and Parore all mention a line from Cameron in last weekend's Sunday Star-Times that if Tua weighed just 105kg come fight night, Cameron would "punch holes" in him. "I was thinking maybe I need to start looking for a suit of armour," says Tua, who essays a series of theatrical sighs. "Oh, I'm scared. I'm scared, man."
But then he does say some nice things about Cameron, how he's the man to beat, the man with the following. He's being frank when he says: "I realise there is a lot of pressure on this fight for me and that's why I have to work harder than I ever have in my career."
Bloodworth says he has never seen his man in better condition.
"He was in good shape for his last fight in the States [Cerrone Fox, September 2007], but to speak honestly, this fight probably means more to him than any in the States ... it's not that I've worked him hard, it's that he's worked hard."
When we're about to finish talking, Tua quietly makes the extraordinary admission that in his entire 53-fight career, encompassing such triumphs as the first-round knockouts of John Ruiz and Michael Moorer, he has never had a fight that he's been truly happy with.
He follows that with the claim that this fight, against Cameron, will surely be the one in which he finally fulfils that potential.
"I'm happy with my career to date, I haven't done too bad: but happy and satisfied are two different things," he explains. "I am just not satisfied and I still feel there is a lot more to give ... the feeling from within is not satisfied with what I have accomplished to date."
Asked why he will win, he says of Cameron, "he's a good fighter, he's done well", then pauses weightily. "But this is my time ... this really is my time. I really, really believe I haven't shown what I know I am capable of."



WAR TUA

 

Okay. Guys. There's another express for another guy named "David" campaigning at heavyweight and working toward a title - that express gets almost daily love.

This is intolerable. Tua KO1 Haye. Better guy, worthier contender...let's keep him on top where he belongs. :happy